


remembering is hard, can i just forget instead?

by lostmemoria



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, after she wakes up, jordan comforts lydia, jordan plays along, lydia thinks jordan and her are dating, prompt i received on tumblr, set during s4, with the deadpool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 23:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2327327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostmemoria/pseuds/lostmemoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jordan finds Lydia unconscious and takes her to the hospital, where he finds out she has amnesia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	remembering is hard, can i just forget instead?

**Author's Note:**

> I got this amazing [prompt](http://lostmemoria.tumblr.com/post/97871552402/remembering-is-hard-can-i-just-forget-instead) from an anon on tumblr and I fell in love with it, resulting in this extremely long fic! 
> 
> **Anonymous asked:** Lydia (post-18th birthday) getting a concussion somehow when she found a body, Jordan finds her unconscious and takes her to the hospital, where they find out she has amnesia. When she first wakes up, she sees Jordan holding her hand and she sees how handsome he is and asks if they’re dating, but he sees the light in her eyes when she says it and before he has time to think much, he says yes and goes with it for a while. Lots of comfort and fluff

There are ten missed calls from Lydia Martin on Jordan’s phone. 

Ten missed calls and a single text message, that has nothing but everything at the same time, an address to a place he’s aware of—an old warehouse just near the Beacon Hills preserve. Jordan tightens his grip on the steering wheel, clenches his jaw, and steps on the gas pedal as he speeds down the deserted highway back to town in the police cruiser. His mind’s a mess and he can’t think straight, because Lydia won’t answer her phone and no matter how hard he tries not to, his mind keeps thinking the worst.  
  
Ever since he met Lydia at the Wendigo house, he’s been intrigued by her, and Jordan always tries to tell himself that it’s because she’s a person of _interest._ But after being burned alive and thrown into the supernatural loop, he’s been spending more and more time with Lydia Martin. Mostly, they’re looking at crime scenes together because her banshee expertise helps catch things that he, or in this case—the whole police department doesn’t really catch that easily. Not only that, but he’s also been talking to the strawberry blonde an awful lot. He doesn’t know where it started, but he remembers how she confided in him about Allison, her best friend, that one day at the station where she was in near tears and Jordan had comforted her. After that, he had found himself confiding in her too—telling her about the people he’s lost in the army and even the nightmares he’s been having ever since he was burnt alive. To be completely honest, he was unbelievably grateful for the girl’s acquaintance because he doesn’t feel like he has to go through this _thing_ , this finding out what he is, alone. And sometimes, Jordan thinks that’s enough reason to have Lydia Martin on his mind often enough, but at the same time, the deputy can’t help but feel attracted to her. _Drawn_ to her.  
  
And he can’t wrap his mind around why.  
  
The abandoned warehouse comes into view as Jordan drives into the parking lot that’s mostly empty, except for a lonely Prius that he sees parked in the corner of the lot.  
  
Lydia’s car.  
  
Jordan steps out of the cruiser, both hands gripped tightly around his gun as he hurries across the lot to the other car. A quick glance through the car windows shows that no one’s inside, and when Jordan checks the doors, they’re locked, which can only mean that Lydia is inside the warehouse. The place used to be an export meat warehouse until it was closed down many years ago because of contamination within the meat, and Jordan swears, as he steps into the cold, murky place, that he can still smell rotting flesh. And as he shines a flashlight through the place, gun cocked in his other hand ready to shoot, the deputy really hopes that it’s just his mind playing tricks on him, and not the rotting flesh of a dead body.  
  
“Lydia!” He calls out, his voice echoing through the rafters, but getting no response in return, except from the crows that fly frightened overhead. And as Jordan treads through the run down place, he finds himself calling Lydia’s name over and over, until all he can hear is his voice echoing off the walls repeatedly, frantically.   
  
His searching brings him to a part of the warehouse where he finds the last thing he wants to find: blood splatters across the concrete. Jordan feels his heart sink as he slowly follows the trail, the crimson glistening under the shine of his flashlight, as he finds himself hoping, _praying_ , that the spilled blood doesn’t belong to Lydia. In the darkness, his flashlight finally captures what looks like the outline of a body splayed across the floor. Jordan freezes at the sight and he finds himself unable to breathe. He doesn’t know how long he stands there, unable to move, unable to think correctly, but when he does find the will to finally move forward, he rushes to the body without another hesitation. He touches it—and it’s cold, lifeless—before he actually sees who it is. But when his eyes catch the dark black hair of a woman instead of fiery red locks, a sigh of relief escapes his lips because it isn’t Lydia.  
  
Jordan doesn’t need to check for a pulse on the body because the woman’s head is nearly decapitated, explaining the blood, and he knows that there’s no way for anyone to survive that, even if they’re a werewolf. He steps away from the body, trying not to tamper with any potential evidence the police would need—or the pack, in this case, since they’re technically the _supernatural_ police of the town. And as he steps away from the bloody scene, Jordan shines his flashlight elsewhere, and almost immediately, he sees _her_.  
  
Her long strawberry blonde hair is scattered across the concrete, and her eyes are closed, a blotch of blood staining the fingers of her outspread arm. “Lydia!” Jordan shouts as he rushes over to her, cradling her head in one hand while the other checked her pulse. It’s there, but terribly faint. And as his hand untangles from her tresses, Jordan finds his palm wet and stained with blood, making him shudder when he realizes that Lydia has an open wound on the back of her head and needs medical attention fast.  
  
Without another hesitation, the deputy picks the girl up, carrying her protectively in his arms while a single finger caresses her cheek which is starting to drain from all its color. Jordan carries her out of the warehouse and settles her in the passenger seat of his car, not caring if the blood bleeds through the seats, because nothing is more important to Jordan right now than saving Lydia Martin’s life.  
  
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Jordan finds himself saying, as he speeds down the highway, the sirens of his police cruiser blaring. He doesn’t know if Lydia can hear him, or if he’s saying it to assure himself, but either way, Jordan knew from the very beginning—ever since he met Lydia Martin—that he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.  
  
Jordan reaches for the radio transmitter, as he calls it in. “ _I have a Code 3 at…”_

 

* *

 

It’s his fault. If Jordan really thinks about it, it’s his fault that Lydia is in the ICU at the moment. The reason he had given her his number the day after the incident at the Wendigo house, was so that she could call him if she ever had any other leads, so he could be _there_ just in case anything went wrong. And the one time she does call him, he doesn’t pick up.   
  
“Your phone was out of service,” the Sheriff tells him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault Parrish. In fact, If it wasn’t for you, Lydia wouldn’t…be with us right now.”  
  
Jordan can only nod at the Sheriff’s words as he looks up from his seat in the waiting room. Lydia’s mother stands a good few feet away from him, sobbing, while Melissa Mccall tries to comfort her with soothing words. The whole pack is there, with Stiles walking back and forth across the hall, restless, and Malia following him. Scott is sitting next to the Sheriff, with Derek and Braedan, and they’re quietly whispering who knows what with one another. Jordan catches some of their conversation though: _the dead pool,_   _it was another assassin_ , _tried to kill two birds with one stone_.  
  
Of course. That explained the body of the dead woman. She was a supernatural creature of some sort, and whoever had killed her, had done so with the intention of luring the banshee, so that he—or she—could kill Lydia too. Jordan feels sick at the thought.   
  
The doors of the ICU burst open as one of the doctors walks into the room. Everyone hurries over, including the Sheriff. Jordan walks over about half way before stopping, realizing that his presence among the pack, among the people that love Lydia so much, isn’t right. So he stands to the side, idly, hoping everything is okay.  
  
The Sheriff strides back over too him after the doctor walks away and Jordan notices the grave expression on his face. ”Is she awake? What did the doctor say?” Jordan immediately jumps to questions. “ _Is Lydia okay?_ ”  
  
The Sheriff tries calming him down, “The doctor said she’s out of danger,”—a sigh of relief escapes from Jordan’s lips—” _But_ , they said that because she has a concussion and the doctors are saying they’re not sure how badly it’s effected her brain, so they’re waiting to see if she wakes up.”  
  
“ _If?_ " A baffled expression crosses Jordan’s face. "What do you mean…?"  
  
Stilinski lets out an unsettling sigh. “It means, there’s a possibility she might fall into a coma if she doesn’t wake up.”  
  
Jordan’s breath hitches as he tries to take in what the Sheriff just said.  _There’s a possibility she might fall into a coma if she doesn’t wake up._ When Jordan doesn’t say anything for a long time, the Sheriff speaks again, “She’s going to wake up, Parrish.”   
  
 _And what if she doesn’t?_  He automatically thinks, the guilt and horror of it all sinking deep into him. Stilinski leaves him with that hopeful message before walking away and Jordan falls back into one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs, staring at the whitewashed walls and hoping, wishing,  _praying_  that Lydia wakes up.

 

* *

 

When the doctor finally permits visitors for Lydia, everyone takes turns to go in one at a time. Jordan doesn’t realize how much time passes and even though he had about three cups of coffee to try and stay awake, he still ends up crashing somewhere through the long night. And when his eyes do open again, the clock reads two in the morning and the waiting room is mostly empty. Aside from the few people he doesn’t recognize sitting in the empty chairs across from him, no one from the pack is there. The deputy gets up slowly, stretching out his tired limbs, groaning from the knot that had formed in his neck, as he tries to figure out why no one woke him up earlier. His eyes glance down the halls, guessing that Scott and Stiles or Lydia’s mother are still somewhere around the hospital wing, but since Jordan can’t see them, he decides that it’s the perfect opportunity to go and see Lydia. So, as if sneakily, Jordan walks slowly toward the direction of Lydia’s ward. He tries to walk as casually as possible, passing by the nurses who all seem more concerned with other things besides someone trying to sneak into a patient’s room after visiting hours. Jordan figures it’s probably because he’s still in his officer uniform.   
  
He slips inside her room easily, where he’s greeted by the persistent beeping of Lydia’s heart monitor. The strawberry blonde lies unconscious in the hospital bed, looking absolutely peaceful to him despite the numerous IVs hooked up to her. Jordan feels something ache in him though as his eyes look over her, because he realizes that the reason she’s in this condition is because of him.   
  
Jordan walks over to her, slowly, the only sounds coming from the monitors hooked up to Lydia and the way Jordan’s shoes hit the floor with each hesitant step. ”I’m sorry,” he whispers. His hand touches hers, the same one that had the bloodstains when he found her back at the warehouse. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there on time…I _should_ have been there. I should have stopped this….from happening.” The deputy finds himself gently taking her hand with his, twining their fingers. Jordan never thought he’d be in this situation again, where he might have to watch someone die because of him. Back when he was in the army, he had lost so many people from his unit, and he always wondered if there could have been anything he could have done to save them, to let them live for another month, another week, another _day_.  And before he can stop himself, he brings Lydia’s hand close to his quivering lips, where he softly kisses her fingers. “ _I’m sorry_.”  
  
Just as his lips leave her somewhat cool skin, he feels her fingers flutter within his grasp. Jordan’s eyes widen as he instinctively tries to let go of her hand, but he can’t because she _holds_ him back. “Lydia…?” his voice comes out barely in a whisper as he examines the strawberry blonde.  
  
And then, almost instantly, Lydia gasps, making Jordan almost jump back from the suddenness of it all, his eyes widening when he sees Lydia’s eyes flutter open as she tries to inhales deeply.  ”Oh god, you’re a-awake,” Jordan musters out, a sigh of relief overtaking him as he asks, “ _Are you okay?_ "  He almost bites his tongue after saying it, cursing himself silently.  _Of course she’s not okay, she just came out of a life and death situation!_  
  
Lydia sits up in her bed abruptly and Jordan notes how she’s looking around at everything, frightened and confused, making the deputy furrow his eyebrows in worry. But when she finally notices his presence, her green eyes locking with his, Jordan sees her features soften. And when her gaze redirects to Jordan holding her hand, he half expects her to pull away, but surprisingly, she doesn’t. Instead, Lydia looks him up and down, and Jordan feels his face burn a slight red when she cocks her head to the side, a small smile forming on her lips. “Do I know you?”  
  
Jordan stares at her, dumbfounded by the question. “Lydia…? It’s me, Jordan. Jordan Parrish?” He feels her squeeze his hand and then lean toward him. Her next question absolutely baffles him.  
  
“ _Are we dating?_ ”  
  
“Wait _—What?_ " A ridiculous expression must have crossed Jordan’s face, because Lydia starts laughing, and for a moment he thinks she’s playing him.  
  
“ _You’re so cute_ ,” she says, eyes twinkling while she bites her lower lip.  
  
Jordan’s mouth goes dry. He’s speechless. Did Lydia Martin really not remember him?  _Oh god_ , he thinks,  _is she suffering from memory loss?_ It’s possible, he’s seen it happen before, a blow to the head like that by a blunt object could easily cause something like it. And for a moment, the deputy thinks of opening his mouth to actually say it, but he automatically stops, realizing that saying _anything_ might cause an adverse effect on her mind. So he asks a follow up question to her statement, just to play it safe. “Why…Why do you assume we’re dating?”  
  
Lydia’s face quickly falls. “So we’re not dating?”  
  
“Yes—no, I mean—” Jordan pauses, because he doesn’t know what he means to say _at all_.  
  
He hears Lydia laugh and he can’t help but smile because he hasn’t heard her laugh for a long time, especially because of the tension of the situation, with the dead pool and assassins running around.  
  
“I heard you,” she suddenly says, as her hand reaches up to grip her head, looking like she’s trying to remember something. “You said…you wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”  
  
“You… _remember that?_ " Jordan asks, shocked.  
  
Lydia nods. “It’s strange. Because…I can’t remember anything else. Why can’t I remember anything else?” She frowns, and Jordan watches her close her eyes, focusing.  
  
“Hey, hey…” Jordan places a hand on the side of her head, carressing her bedhead curls and making her look up at him. “It’ll come back to you. It will.” He gives her a reassuring smile and she smiles back at him.  
  
“That’s how I assumed,” she says softly. “That we were together. You…look like you care a lot about me. Like I’m someone very important to  _you_.” Her hand reaches for Jordan’s again and he lets her hold it as he watches the hopeful glint form in her eyes.  
  
He lets out a soft sigh, because he knows deep in his heart and mind that Lydia isn’t exactly wrong about what she said. Lydia _does_ mean something to him, but Jordan just doesn’t know what yet. He doesn’t know if it’s because they’re both on the dead pool list or that Lydia could possibly help him figure out what he is, or if it’s because he finds her absolutely beautiful and that he may be more than just _intrigued_ by her. But he can’t tell her that. He needs to tell her that no, they’re  _not_  dating, and he needs to tell her that even though she’s eighteen, he’s six years older than her _and_ a cop, but when Jordan does finally open his mouth to say it—he doesn’t know what prevents him to do so. And before he has time to think much about it, he finds himself saying:  
  
“Actually, you’re not completely _wrong_ …”

 

* *

 

Jordan regrets it.  
  
He goes home and he can’t sleep because he regrets it. He goes to work the next day and can’t concentrate because _he regrets it._ He doesn’t know what the hell he was thinking when he told Lydia they were dating, but he regrets ever saying it, because this morning he finds out from the Sheriff that Lydia does in fact have amnesia and can’t remember anything that’s happened in the past year. Which means, she doesn’t know that she’s a banshee, or that Scott’s a werewolf, or anything about the dead pool, and in fact, now that he thinks about it, she technically shouldn’t even remember what he said to her in her unconsciousness, but she _does,_ and he finds that really weird.  
  
But out of everything that Lydia’s forgotten, the thing that breaks Jordan’s heart the most to hear is the fact that Lydia isn’t even aware that her best friend, Allison Argent, is dead. He doesn’t know how the pack is going to break that news to her, if they ever decide to.  
  
And it makes Jordan feel terrible because he feels like he’s taking advantage of the girl by saying that they’re dating, even though he never meant to say it in the first place, and _god_ , his mind’s a mess. Luckily, no one else in the pack seems to be aware of what he said to Lydia because Jordan goes the whole day at the station without the Sheriff bringing it up or getting any threatening text messages from Stiles. So he decides that as soon as he gets off his shift, he’s going to go straight to Lydia’s house and straighten everything out.  
  
But before he can even think of how that will possibly go, his eyes glance up from the paperwork on his desk and immediately catch the bright hair of the strawberry blonde just a few feet away from him. Lydia’s talking to the Sheriff, nodding her head slowly and Jordan notices the gauze wrapped around her forehead and the back of her head, the white of it contrasting greatly with the fire of her hair. And just when he’s about to look away, Lydia’s eyes glance toward him, catching his gaze. She gives him a small smile and Jordan tries his best to smile back, even though the guilt is overwhelming him like crazy. The Sheriff walks away from Lydia a few moments after and Jordan watches as the strawberry blonde slowly makes her way toward him, her eyes twinkling as they did the night prior at the hospital.  
  
“Lydia,” he starts, voice slightly tense, “what brings you here?”  
  
“I’m trying to figure out how I managed to win a deputy’s heart,” she says, teasingly, and Jordan blushes.  _Tell her now_ , his mind says but for some reason, he pushes it away.  
  
“It wasn’t too hard,” he finds himself saying without thinking twice, and when he realizes what he just said, he casts his gaze down embarrassed.  _Nice. Real smooth._ _  
  
_Lydia laughs and smile, “The Sheriff wanted me to come down and recount anything I remember from….my accident.”  
  
Jordan’s eyebrow quirks in interest. “Did you remember anything?” he asks, a little too fast.  
  
Lydia shakes her head. “Nothing. I don’t even know _why_ I went to that warehouse in the first place…” she sighs, disappointment and distress obvious on her features.  
  
Jordan doesn’t know when he got up from his seat and walked around his desk to her, placing a hand on her shoulder, but he _does it._  Lydia looks up at him with those soft green eyes of hers and for a second, Jordan finds himself lost in them. “…It’ll come back to you,” he finally says. “Just give it some time.” He gives her a gentle smile and Lydia nods in return, but then Jordan’s brows furrow as a realization dawns on hims, “Wait—Did you drive here?  _You shouldn’t be driving_. You had a concussion!”  
  
“Relax, deputy,” Lydia says, her hand finding his and holding it lightly. Jordan swallows hard at the gesture, glancing around to see if anyone sees them but everyone is too busy bustling around to notice. Lydia continues, “One of the girls dropped me off…I forgot her name.”  
  
“Kira?” Jordan suggests.  
  
Lydia crinkles her nose, which Jordan thinks is awfully adorable. “Yeah, I think that was it.”  
  
“How about I take you home?” The deputy asks, but then realizes how _bad_ that sounds and quickly musters, “—I mean, drive you home, of course.”  
  
“I know what you mean, Jordan,” Lydia grins, walking ahead of him.  
  
Jordan follows behind her, and he can’t help but think that it’s going to be a long night.

The drive to her house is mostly quiet, which for some reason makes Jordan feel uneasy, probably because he’s having a moral dilemma on whether or not to tell her the truth. On one hand, it’s the right thing to do, but on the _other_ hand, Jordan doesn’t know how she’ll take it. What will she think, being lied to right after losing her memory? His grip on the steering wheel tightens because he decides, _finally_ decides, to just play along with it.

And even though he won’t admit it, but in the back of his mind, there’s an obvious selfish reason to his decision.  
  
He stops the car in front of her house and Lydia glances at the house before turning towards him, “Do you want to come in?”  
  
Jordan’s mouth goes dry. He wants to, he wants to go inside, talk to her, comfort her, maybe trace the outline of her lips with _his_ —“Maybe next time,” he says with a small smile.  
  
He half expects her to argue, but she doesn’t. “Okay,” she says, nodding, and then stepping out the door. “Night, deputy.”   
  
“Night, Lydia.” Jordan watches her walk slowly up to her front door, watches her glance back at him when she reaches the bottom step, and even in the darkness, Jordan can make out the smile on her face. He waits until she’s safe inside her house to leave, but as he watches her start to scour through her bag—for keys, perhaps?—her hands come out, empty. Jordan’s eyebrow arches when he sees her retreat back to his car, hand resting hopelessly on her temple.  
  
“What’s wrong?” he asks her when she comes to the open window.  
  
“Apparently, I…forgot my keys,” she replies, lips pressed together. “And…I forgot my mom wasn’t going to be home.” She scratches her head, sheepishly, and lets out a small laugh. “This amnesia thing is really screwing with me, isn’t it?”  
  
Jordan gives her a sad smile.  _You have no idea._  
  
“And,” she puts both hands on her hips, a gesture that Jordan has seen many times before, “if you don’t want to help me break into my own house, I suggest we head over to your place.”  
  
The deputy feels himself hesitate at her idea, but realizing that he really has no where else he could take her, says, “Yeah, sure. Get in.”

 

* *

 

"Have I been here before?" Is the first question Lydia asks when they enter his apartment, her bright green eyes observing his personal space, which is strangely very tidy, a mannerism that Jordan picked up being an army guy and all.  
  
“No, you haven’t,” Jordan says, closing the door behind him.  
  
She glances at him, curiously. “Why not?”  
  
Jordan doesn’t have an answer for as he licks his lips and watches Lydia take in his place with a keen eye, picking up photo frames he has of him with his family, touching the tops of surfaces with her fingers, and when her hands stray to the walls, Jordan wonders if she’ll ever be able to hear the voices in her head again. “I was waiting for the right time,” he finally says while Lydia plops down on his sofa, comfortably.  
  
“Well, I’m pretty sure this isn’t what you had in mind,” Lydia jokes, slightly tugging on the gauze wrap around her head.  
  
“Is it bothering you? Maybe we should change it,” Jordan suggests, already moving towards the bathroom where he keeps his first aid kit.  
  
Lydia stops picking at it. “Yeah, okay.”  
  
“You…can go ahead and make yourself comfortable,” Jordan says, “I’ll just be back.” He takes one last glance at Lydia, who smiles at him and nods, reassuring him that she’ll be  _okay_  alone for the five minutes he’s leaving her alone, because even though she might have lost her memory, the deputy figures she’s aware of how over protective he can be.  
  
Jordan makes his way to the bathroom, where he pulls out the first aid kit from under the sink, and before heading back to where Lydia is sitting, he decides to stop by the kitchen to make them some coffee. He wonders if she still drinks it with plenty of sugar, a fact he found out during their late nights at the station, looking at potentially gruesome photos of dead bodies.Not his idea of a good first date. _  
  
_When he returns to the living room with the two cups of coffee and gauze wrap, he nearly drops everything when he doesn’t find the strawberry blonde seated on the couch. “Lydia..?” his voice comes out more nervous than it ought to.  
  
“Over here,” he hears her say somewhere down the hallway. Jordan follows her voice and finds her, of course, in his room.  
  
She’s standing in front of his bookcase, admiring the ample amount of memorabilia that Jordan has from his army days. Photos, medals, little trinkets from where he’s been stationed…”Is this your unit?” Lydia picks up a photo frame, pointing at it for him to see.  
  
Jordan nods with a smile as he makes his way over to her. “Yeah. We were all really great friends, back when I was in Afghanistan.” He finds himself taking the picture from her, staring at the familiar smiling faces as a shiver passes down his spine.  
  
“Do you miss them?” Lydia asks, watching his every expression. “Where are they now?”  
  
“Everyday,” Jordan sighs, placing the photo back to its place. “Some of them went back home, some are still in the army, and others….passed on.”  
  
He feels her touch his arm. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” she says, regretfully.  
  
“No, it’s okay,” Jordan assures her as he places their coffee down on the bed side table. “I’ve actually…told you about this before.”  
  
“Oh, you have?” Lydia sits across from him on his bed, letting him lean toward her as he works gently to unwrap the gauze.  
  
“Yeah, we sort of confided in each other,” he says, remembering to when she told him about Allison, and he told her about his time in the army.  
  
“I wish I could remember..,” she says softly, before wincing as Jordan finally removes all the gauze, while apologizing, and then throwing it in the waste basket.  
  
 _I wish you could too_ , Jordan thinks, but doesn’t dare to say it out loud because he doesn’t want Lydia to feel anymore grief than she already does. So, instead, he pays attention to wrapping the new gauze around her head, and she lets him. “ _How did we meet?_ " Lydia finally asks, after Jordan’s done half way.  
  
He smiles at the question, remembering their first encounter at the Wendigo house. Jordan asks her if she really wants to know, to which Lydia responds with an excited nod, and Jordan has no choice but to tell her, while keeping in mind not to spill anything about the supernatural. “I found you sneaking around a crime scene,” he says with a grin as he finishes wrapping the gauze.  
  
“What? _No way_ ,” Lydia says in disbelief. “What was I doing there?”  
  
 _Looking for dead bodies,_ he automatically answers in his mind. ”Um, you sort of had a fascination with murders,” he says instead.  
  
Lydia frowns and gives him a questioning brow. “You make me sound like a serial killer in the making,” she snorts.  
  
“I didn’t think that,” Jordan says, “ _I swear_.”  
  
“Then what did you think of me?” Lydia asks with an interested smile.  
  
Jordan finds himself speechless by her question. How is he supposed to answer? He remembers seeing her at the Wendigo house, pointing his gun at her, thinking she was a suspect, and then sighing in relief when she wasn’t. He remembers following her into the house, questioning why a seventeen year old high school girl was here. But he also remembers not being able to take his eyes  _off_ her for some reason that he couldn’t explain then, and possibly couldn’t explain now, even if asked. “I…thought you were a person of interest,” he says vaguely, awkwardly, as he glances away from her and picks up his cup of coffee, taking a sip. He doesn’t need to look at Lydia to know she isn’t satisfied with that answer, but she doesn’t question further as she leans across and picks up her own cup of coffee. She lingers a little too long—and Jordan finds her holding his dog tags.  
  
He doesn’t say anything, just watches her stare at the metal tags with a smile before she slips them on and over her head, letting them dangle around her neck. Jordan doesn’t know why she does it, but he thinks of it as a somewhat romantic gesture, and when she moves to take them off, he stops her. “Keep them,” he says.  
  
Lydia’s eyes widen, “No, it’s okay I was just—“  
  
“Keep them,” Jordan says again. And he doesn’t know why he wants her to keep them, he just does. “I want you to keep them.”  
  
Lydia hesitates for a moment but then nods, her fingers grazing across the metal once more before going back to drinking her coffee. And they sit like that, in the silence, on his bed, sipping their coffee—until of course; Lydia finds a way to make him absolutely speechless again with her questions. “Have we kissed yet?” That’s the question that makes Jordan nearly spill his coffee all over him, but he manages to set it down before he makes that mistake.  
  
“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Lydia adds, smiling.  
  
Jordan feels his cheeks start to burn as he stares at Lydia, wide eyed. “Were…you expecting us to  _have kissed?_ ” He doesn’t why he asked that question, when he knows it’s just asking for more trouble. But maybe that’s what Jordan wants. He wants to take the risk.  
  
“Well, you look quite kissable,” she says, flirtatiously, staring up at him with those green eyes of hers that Jordan always gets lost in. “If I knew that I liked my men in uniform, I would have broken up with Jackson  _a long time ago_.”  
  
He shouldn’t laugh when she says that last part, especially since she doesn’t even know that Jackson is a werewolf living in France now—but he does laugh, and Lydia laughs with him. Jordan doesn’t know how long they giggle and chuckle for, but when they do stop, they’re both staring at each other, flustered, and Jordan is glancing back and forth from her gaze to her lips, and he really  _wants to_ , but he knows he shouldn’t—  
  
Jordan’s pretty sure he initiates the kiss, but he’s not completely sure so he might never know, but that’s okay because her lips are on his and his lips are on hers, and she hasn’t pulled away as Jordan kisses her softly, his hands cradling her face and his thumbs caress the apples of her cheeks, because he doesn’t want to rush this. He kisses her like it’s a privilege, because it is a  _damn privilege_ , especially since Jordan has imagined kissing Lydia Martin before—but only for a few seconds at a time, because he usually always felt guilty after thinking so—and he never thought that the real thing would be like this, in this  _situation_ , but he isn’t complaining. And as Lydia’s lips move against his, Jordan tastes her strawberry lip gloss and the tinge of sugary coffee against her lips from when she was drinking it a few moments prior, and it’s only then when he realizes how much he loves the feel of her lips against his, does he realize how  _wrong_  it is. Jordan shouldn’t be kissing Lydia, not like this at least. Not when she was fighting for her life just the night before, not when she’s had a concussion, not when she’s  _lost her memory_. “Lydia…,” he pulls away, slowly, missing the feel of her lips already. “I can’t…”  
  
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Lydia asks, her voice a cutting edge, her face still close to his.  
  
“I can’t…Not like this,” Jordan whispers, “ _I need you to remember everything first, Lydia._ ”  
  
She frowns, “But remembering  _is hard_ ,” she whispers back, and she smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “ _Can I just forget instead?_ ”  
  
For a moment, Jordan almost believes her. He almost believes her because Lydia Martin has been through so much in the past year that she shouldn’t have gone through, and if Lydia Martin was any other teenage girl, she might have actually wanted to forget instead. But that’s the difference—Lydia Martin isn’t like any other teenage girl. Jordan knows she doesn’t want to forget, she doesn’t want to forget what Peter did to her, she doesn’t want to forget being a banshee, and she doesn’t want to forget the death of her best friend, because it makes her  _stronger_.   
  
“You don’t want to forget,” Jordan says, struggling to smile at her as his hand touches hers on the bed. “You will want to remember.”  
  
Lydia doesn’t say anything after that and she has every reason not to, so Jordan gets up slowly. “You should rest. You need all the rest you can get,” he tells her, but she doesn’t even glance at him. “I’ll sleep on the couch, you can sleep on the bed here.” He waits for her to say something, anything, but she doesn’t, instead her hand moves across his dog tags she’s wearing and strokes the cool metal between her fingers.  
  
Jordan nods, understanding her need to be alone, as he walks out of the room, glancing back at her only once.   
  
She doesn’t meet his gaze.

* *

 

It happens again.   
  
It happens every night, but this time, the nightmare is much more intense. Jordan relives the day he got burned alive over and over again in his dreams, and every time he thinks that maybe the nightmare will help him understand why he isn’t dead, he wakes up. And when he does wake up that particular night, in cold sweat, panting as usual, he doesn’t go back to sleep immediately. First, he goes to the kitchen, to drink a glass of water to calm himself down, and then instead of heading back to the couch, he walks toward his bedroom to check on Lydia. Opening the door just a tinge, he peeks in and tries to find her through the darkness. But as he searches, his eyes scanning the whole room, it takes him longer than it should to realize that Lydia’s  _not_  there.  
  
Jordan panics as he frantically starts looking through his apartment for the strawberry blonde, but he doesn’t find her.  _Where can she go this late night?_  Having absolutely no leads, Jordan grabs his phone and calls Scott, because if whatever happened Lydia had to do with the supernatural, Scott should be the first to know.  
  
After dealing with the werewolf, and dealing with a highly questionable Stiles— _how can you lose her?_ —Jordan runs out into the cool midnight air, getting into his car and driving down the street to look for Lydia. He doesn’t know where to start, but he looks  _everywhere_. He passes by Lydia’s house, the Argents house, the Beacon Hills Preserve, and he was about to go to the warehouse that he found Lydia at the first time, when he gets a call from Scott, telling him she’s not there. Jordan feels himself getting more worried by each passing second, because Lydia’s out there  _somewhere_  with deadly assassins walking about, ready to kill her at sight, and she doesn’t even know. “I need a sign,” he whispers to himself as he turns the corner of a street. “ _Anything_. Just let me find her.”  
  
And almost as if his wishes were heard, he hears it.  
  
It’s the loudest thing he’s ever heard in his entire life. Louder than any explosion, any gunshot, any cry for help. It’s shrilling and high-pitched as it echoes through his ears, his mind frantically.  _The scream of a banshee._  
  
Before Jordan can even pick up his phone and call Scott to ask him if he heard that, which Jordan was pretty sure he  _did_ , he gets a text from the werewolf that only has a single word.  
  
 _School._

_  
_ * *

  
When he gets there, his instinct tells him,  _the field._ And over his many years in the army and on the police force, Jordan has learned to trust his instinct.   
  
He doesn’t stop running until he finds her standing in the middle of the lacrosse field, the lights shining over her brightly, but to him, she stands there, glowing brighter than any light—any star. And maybe that’s when Jordan realizes that he  _really_  can’t take his eyes off her and that it’s probably because he’s finally succumbing to that selfish reason of his, as he stands there, staring at her, a sigh of relief passing through him because she’s  _okay_. “Lydia!” He calls out her name and she turns, facing him, and as Jordan runs towards her, he doesn’t catch the fear stricken expression on her face, or how her mouth is slowly moving—slowly  _whispering_.  
  
When he gets close enough to her, his arms wrap around her protectively, pulling her close to his chest, because  _god_ , he can’t even think of losing her again. He feels her hug him back, gently as she moves against him until he hears her tiny voice against his ear.  
“ _Leave. Leave now._ ”  
  
Jordan’s grip on her slowly loosens as he pulls away a bit to look at her face, and he sees it. The fear on her face, the  _tears_ in her eyes. He’s confused and he’s about to ask what she means, but when he opens his mouth to say something, nothing comes out.   
  
A single gunshot resonates through the field.  
  
One of their breaths hitch, but Jordan doesn’t know whose, but he’s pretty sure it’s hers as his hand goes down to his abdomen, where his fingers immediately get stained with the blood bleeding through his shirt. His wound.  _His_  blood.   
  
“Jordan—“ The tears are falling down Lydia’s face now as she reaches out toward him, but quickly retreats after another gunshot echoes through them, making Lydia scream, and it’s not a banshee scream, it’s a  _different_  kind of scream.  
  
Jordan, unable to stand any longer, slumps forward, about to fall, but Lydia catches him, her arms wrapping around his bloody torso. “No, no,  _no_ ,” he hears her say in between tears, “you can’t leave,  _I’m not going to let anything happen to you!_ ”  
  
But he already feels himself leaving, his vision blurring before him, a sharp pain throbbing through his whole body. Jordan tries to hold on to Lydia, to hold her close to him, because this might be the last time, but the pain overwhelms him as he falls forward on to the grass, bringing Lydia down with him. He doesn’t know when it starts to feel hard to breathe, but it does—and he’s trying to take large breaths of air as he lays there, bleeding out. Lydia is crouched before him, holding him in her arms, cradling her head, and he can barely make out her bright red hair and her worried eyes, her moving lips, but he can’t hear her anymore. All he hears is a sharp ringing in his ears, blocking out all other noises. And even though he can’t hear anything, or even hear himself, he opens his mouth and says the last thing he wants to say. He says it over and over as he feels his body start to shut down on him. And he thinks—the last thought before everything turns black—that he couldn’t have asked to die in anyone else’s arms besides Lydia Martin.

  
* *

  
She’s lost everything.   
  
And Lydia doesn’t know what she would have done if she had lost him too.   
  
 _Go._  She doesn’t know if it’s her mind playing tricks with her, but she’s sure that’s Allison’s voice, somewhere in the back of her head. And whether it’s a figment of her imagination or if she can  _really_  hear Allison’s voice, she doesn’t have time to ponder it as she grips the flowers tightly in her hand and enters the room. The last time Lydia was here, she was fighting for her life. Now she’s here because of the person that  _saved_  her life.  
  
When she enters the room, she’s almost afraid to meet his gaze, but she knows he’s looking at her.  _He always is_. They don’t say anything for the longest time. Not after Lydia sets down the flowers, not after Lydia sits down next to him, not after she finally,  _finally_  meets his brilliant green eyes.   
  
They sit in silence.  
  
Jordan breaks it first. “Ranunculus,” he says, looking at the flowers. “ _They’re nice_.”  
  
Lydia can’t take it anymore. “I remember everything,” she blurts out.  
  
He looks at her, slightly surprised. She’s sure he wasn’t expecting it. She’s sure he didn’t expect her to come in with the recollection of all her memories.  
  
“How—?” he asks, his voice a whisper.  
  
“That day, on the field…After I thought you—“ she pauses, not even able to say the word. “ _died_ …I saw Allison, out in the distance, and I screamed her name. Louder than when I screamed it at Oak Creek. And everything came flooding back to me…and I passed out.”  
  
When he speaks again, it surprises her. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “I’m sorry for lying to you…I was being selfish and I didn’t—“  
  
“I like you.” Lydia didn’t expect it to come out of her like that, but it does, and she can’t do anything to take it back. Her words sit in the air between them, heavy.  
  
“Lydia, I can’t—“  
  
The anger surges through her louder than ever, “ _Stop saying that_.” Lydia’s standing now. “Stop saying you can’t, I know you don’t mean it.”  
  
He sighs. “Lydia, I’m six years older than you—“  
  
“I don’t care!” Her voice echoes off the walls of the room. “And I know you don’t either. If you did care, then tell me that when you kissed me, it didn’t mean anything. Tell me—“ she hesitates, her hand clenching at the metal dangling around her neck, “Ask for your dog tags back.”  
  
“I don’t—“  
  
She cuts him off again, “Ask for them back.”  
  
Jordan stares at her. “I can’t.”  
  
“Why can’t you?”  
  
“Because…I don’t want to.”  
  
Her voice turns softer. “Why don’t you want to?”  
  
“Because I like you.” Lydia watches as a smile crosses his lips, probably because he can’t believe he said that  _out loud_  but since it’s already out there, Jordan continues, “ _A lot_.”  
  
She smiles, moving closer to him, until her hand is in his hair, stroking away the loose strands. “Why?”  
  
Jordan laughs at this, because he knows that if he starts listing all the reasons why he likes her, he’ll never be able to stop. “Because you’re brilliant.”  
  
Lydia kisses his forehead. Jordan continues, “Because you’re beautiful.”  
She kisses his cheek. “Because everything seems better with you.”  
  
Lydia hovers right above his lips, eyebrow arched. “ _Seems_?”  
  
He smiles. “ _Is_  better with you.”  
  
She hums in approval, smiling against his lips before kissing him slowly, softly; because she doesn’t want to rush this—because she loves the way his lips feel against hers. When she pulls away, they’re both smiling a lot. Lydia feels his hand caress her hair as his eyes stare at her contently. “Do you remember what I said to you?”  
  
“On the field?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Lydia nods.   
  
“Can you say it?” Jordan asks. “I want to hear you say it.”  
  
Lydia smiles, “ _Remembering is hard, but I don’t want to forget_.”  
  
“Say it again.”  
  
And Lydia says it again and again until she tells Jordan she rather be doing something else with her lips instead, which makes him blush and laugh. “I like you. A lot,” he says it again, boyishly, and she wonders if he’s had too much anesthesia from when they removed the bullets from him, but Lydia just smiles, because she likes hearing him say it.  
  
“ _Say it again_ ,” Lydia teases.  
  
And Jordan says it again and again until Lydia can’t take it anymore, so she kisses him instead, and they kiss and kiss and kiss, because they never want to forget this feeling. When they part to catch their breath, Lydia stares at him with bright green eyes, a small smile on her lips, as she returns the words:  
  
"I like you a lot too."

**Author's Note:**

> [come squeal with me over marrish on tumblr!](http://lostmemoria.tumblr.com)


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